Stansberry Orphanage in Bolivia

Stansberry

What makes Stansberry special is that it’s actually more than an orphanage. The home consists of two programs, including a daycare for children in extreme poverty.


On-site home

Instead of separating children into dorms by gender, Stansberry places them into one of their three on-site homes. In this way, they can keep siblings together. The orphanage houses about 30 kids at a time, with 10 in each house. Each house has staff who fill the role of parents, taking care of both physical and emotional needs. As such, the orphanage is special in that it provides a family setting for children who otherwise would have none.


Classroom

The program allows parents to work and/or obtain a degree while their children who are not yet old enough to attend school are watched over and educated. Without the daycare, children would often be left at home to take care of themselves while parents worked long hours. In families with more than one child, often the older one is assigned the role of watching over the younger ones. This may not sound too bad, but keep in mind that these are children who are 5 years old or younger. The daycare, then, both relieves children of a burden and gives them an education.


Path

Education is vital to breaking the cycle of poverty, and so the daycare provides an extremely important opportunity for the families involved. Nearly every child who has gone to public school from Stansberry has quickly risen to the top of their class.

Currently, there are 63 families whose 85 children are in the daycare program. However, due to rising costs, this is only half the number of children Stansberry originally had. With our help, the home can build its daycare program back up and continue to serve people in need.